Wednesday, September 9, 2020

Read, Think, Write, Repeat

READ, THINK, WRITE, REPEAT Stephen King stated it finest: “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the instruments) to write. Simple as that.” He’s 100% right on that point, so I’m going to go ahead and assume that you’re all out there studying. And as I’ve beneficial before, you should be studying out and in of your favourite genre. Do you write (no less than primarily) fantasy? Fantastic! You know I love fantasy. I write fantasy, and I learn fantasy, too. And I learn science fiction, horror, thrillerâ€"in varied sub-genresâ€"in addition to “literary” fiction and all types of non-fiction, and not simply non-fiction about writing fiction, either, but all kinds of stuff, throughout the board. I bet you do that too, and that’s swell. Now let’s kick it up a notch. Readâ€"for God’s sake, learnâ€"however if you’re additionally writing, you need to think of everything you readâ€"again, out and in of your chosen genre(s)â€"as Writing School. Everything you learnâ€"and I mean every little thing, good, bad, or indifferentâ€"is a lesson in the way to do it or how not to do it, usually each within the same e-book. For instance, I didn’t simply read then put aside the book The World Split Open: Great Authors on How and Why We Write, which I beneficial right here a pair weeks ago. As I read that e-book, I wrote notes in the margins, copied passages into not simply that submit however into various files on numerous subjects, together with this one, from E.L. Doctorow’s essay “Childhood of a Writer” during which he revealed that when he was 9 years old he …was more disposed than ever to learn or hearken to radio tales, and I was now studying not only to seek out out what occurred subsequent but with that additional line of inquiry of the child author who is yet to write down: How is that this carried out?It is a kind of imprinting. We reside in the book as we learn it, sure, however we run with the creator as nicelyâ€"this wild begetter of voice s, this voice of voices, this noble creature of the wild whose linguistic lope over any type of terrain brings it into being. I additionally lately ran across (for less than ninety nine ¢â€"the subject of another submit!) the e-book American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plathby Carl Rollyson. In an appendix therein, Rollyson showcases a few passages that had been found underlined and/or annotated in Plath’s personal library, together with: O strange happiness, that seeketh the alliance of Death to win its crown… it must needs be a forcible evil, that has power to make a man (nay, a clever man) to be his own executioner… A wise man is certainly to endure dying with persistence, but that must come ab externofrom one other man’s hand and never from his own. [In the left-hand margin, Plath wrote, “Why?”] But these males instructing that he could do it himself, simply needs confess that the evils are intolerable which pressure a man to such an extreme impropriety. [Plath wrote, “yes.”] â€"St. Augustine, The City of God Something I share in common with Sylvia Plath. I adore it. It’s truly fairly rare that I learn an entire guide with out at least copying out some passage if not really marking it up in the guide itself. I have an entire shelf of books that I have annotated indirectly. If you can’t handle the sin of marking up a guide, contemplate this your solely trigger warning for the pictures to follow, however even if you do really feel strongly that books shouldn't be written in (Sylvia Plath and I, a minimum of, disagree) then a minimum of scan stuff you wish to keep in mind, or shoot an image together with your cellphone camera, or transcribe it indirectlyâ€"the same means you would possibly take notes in school. Because should you’re a writer, if you’re reading, you’re in class! Here are a number of classes I’ve learned from books I’ve read: I’m nonetheless working my method through a beat-up old copy of the sword and sorce ry anthology The Fantastic Swordsmen, edited by L. Sprague de Camp, but I had to call out this example of how pulp fiction wasn’t all written within the sort of straightforward, outcomes-oriented fashion of the hardboiled detective authors like Hammet and Chandler. Here, a sixteen year old Robert Bloch, by way of Lovecraft, through Dunsany, goes purple: In the same guide I got here throughout a reference to a e-book that sounded interesting (and it’s been added to my listing!) and thought a paragraph in de Camp’s introduction to Henry Kuttner’s “Dragon Moon” supplied some fascinating recommendation on how imitating other authors can really help you discover your own voice. In the weeks forward search for a submit on how authors use sound to maneuver their tales forward, which is able to embody this instance from the brief story “The James Dean Garage Band” revealed in Rick Moody’s assortment The Ring of Brightest Angels Around Heaven. I use Stephen King’s Skeleto n Crewas one of the texts for my online Horror Intensive, so after I put that course together I read it again while making intensive notes, like this, which illustrated a point I made in my very own guide, Writing Monsters: Not intending to take action once I sat down to read it, I wrote a 3-half blog post sequence on classes from Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and the Stars, after noticing I’d referred to as out a bunch of ideas like: Anyone who’s spent any time here is aware of I put lots of thought and phrases into heroes and villains, so why wouldn’t I actually have made observe of this paragraph from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground? And I may go on and on and on. Everything I read (and every little thing I watch on TV and each sport I play, and every conversation and every moment I’m conscious) I’m observing, thinking, trying to recollect, taking notes… absorbing the world around me to place it back into my work. And I’m not special or weird or in any means different from another author. It’s a factor we achieve this we are able to then do what we do. â€"Philip Athans About Philip Athans I agree. I typically prefer to learn a chapter or brief story twice. First time I simply learn it and then jot down my first impressions. Then I go back through and attempt to summarize as I go, and jot down what strikes me as strong and weak within the moment, before writing out some “last thoughts”. Some things can be discovered while studying casually, however often it really pays to formally ask your self “what’s the battle”, “how is the author directing and maintaining the audience’s focus”, among other questions. I am a bit leery of writing in the textual content itself, mostly as a result of as soon as I do this I’m creating a permanent slant. I wish to method a story with a clear slate, as a lot as I can, so that I am free to note new issues, without re-noticing old ones via my notes.

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